Chapter 13: Where the intention is (2)

Seeing that everyone looked at him, Yang Tianming picked up his cup and drank water, cleared his throat and began to tell the story of what he and others learned about in Hetao and Longdong areas and their actions.

After Yang Tianming and others separated from Zhao Zhenzhong in Dongsheng County in late November, they followed Zhao Zhenzhong's orders and divided into four groups and acted separately. Among them, Yang Tianming led 300 personnel to carry two radio stations in Yanchi and Dingbian area; Chen Hailan, chief of staff of the Special Forces Brigade, led 1,000 people from the frozen Yellow River through Boxwood Platform to the Langshan area northwest of Linhe; Sun Yaoming, captain of the First Brigade of Special Forces Brigade, led 1,400 people through Yanchi and Dingbian, and entered the Longdong area southward; Zheng Jiantao, deputy captain of the First Brigade of Special Forces Brigade, led 300 people who could speak Shaanxi and Shanxi dialects to sneak into the Dingbian, Jingbian, Anbian and Hengshan areas in northern Shaanxi.

Among them, Chen Hailan and Yang Tianming's several works are the farthest apart, basically acting independently, while Sun Yaoming and Zheng Jiantao's two works are close to each other and can cooperate with each other. Some actions are also carried out in a very interesting way.

"However, although Hailan has not the largest number of troops, the results achieved are no less than ours." Yang Tianming said, "In addition to seizing many war horses and turning them into cavalry, they also supported more than 300 war horses on our side. This brought great convenience to our actions. Let me first talk about the situation that Hailan and the others discovered in Hetao and their own development. This was what I heard Hailan tell me in detail before I came back."

After Chen Hailan broke up with Yang Tianming with 100 pack horses and 1,000 soldiers, he arrived at Langshan near Linhe County for a few days and found a place to hide. He sent cadres to find out the situation in Shanxi dialect to the people nearby. After some inquiries, he analyzed the various gathered news, which made Chen Hailan understand the general situation in Linhe and even near Hetao.

Hetao generally refers to the area east of Helan Mountain, west of Luliang Mountain, south of Yin Mountain, and north of the Great Wall. Among them, the Yinchuan Plain between Qingtong Gorge and Shizui Mountain in Ningxia is the Western Tao; and the Suiyuan area north of the Great Wall, south of Yin Mountain and west of Luliang Mountain is the Eastern Tao. Among the East Tao, the Chilechuan Plain between Baotou, Guisui and Lama Bay is also called the Front Tao; and to the west of Baotou, the north of the Yellow River, including Wuyuan, Linhe, Boxwood Platform, to the west, to Langshan, and Yin Mountain is also called the Back Tao.

In other words, Chen Hailan's troops are in the back hall area.

The back of this era was really a place where the troops were deserted, bandits and horse bandits were rampant. During the Central Plains War, Yan Xishan transferred the Suiyuan garrison and even exacerbated the hunluàn here. After the Central Plains War, Yan Xishan was defeated and stepped down. Although many of the troops of Wang Jingguo and Fu Zuoyi in the Jinsui Army returned to Suiyuan, they were basically concentrated in the area close to the Pingsui Line. Although the Jinsui Army returned to Suiyuan, they were short of food and wages now, and were waiting for Zhang Xueliang to carry out the work on them.

It was reduced and reorganized, so no one led his troops into the Houtao area. In addition, some landlords and bureaucrats secretly colluded with the bandits to inform them. It was normal for bandits to block the road and rob and commit crimes in the whole day. As mentioned earlier, Cha Liangzhao was abducted by bandits for more than 80 days when he was helping the victims in Wuyuan area for 30 years before he was released. This is still the case when he was the one who helped the victims. The bandits were kind-hearted and did not tear up the votes. This shows how the Hunluàn in the Houtao area was seen.

Chen Hailan did not care about the Hunluàn in the Houtao area. Instead, he felt that this kind of Hunluàn was the opportunity for his troops to take the opportunity to start. What he was worried about was whether this area could support his people. Before he arrived here, Chen Hailan had heard Zhao Zhenzhong introduce the disaster situation here for years. Although there was sufficient logistics supplies stored by Zhao Zhenzhong in Dongsheng, it was a bit far away. In addition, he had to cross the Yellow River. If the logistics problems of himself and others could not be solved on the spot, it would be difficult for him to exist here.

However, the situation gathered together made Chen Hailan angry and surprised.

The disaster in Suiyuan is severe, and the people are poor, but that is the vast number of people at the bottom. For the landlords and bureaucrats in Suiyuan, not only are they constantly poor, but on the contrary, they are all very féd.

From the first year of the Republic of China to 1920, the four generals in Suiyuan, the governors gathered money by reclaiming land and clearing acres of land. In 1926, after Yan Xishan's troops occupied Suiyuan, they formulated the "Measures for Clearing Up the Amount of Abundant Lease" and the "Rules on Disciplinary Disposal of Rectification of Breaks" and explicitly ordered the annual lease of the people who were owed to the barren price before 1925, otherwise the land would be relocated separately, and at the same time, the land would be reclaimed.

Due to the low price of wasteland, wealthy businessmen, gentry, bureaucrats and politicians from all over Suiyuan all strive to take over the wasteland first. "There are few people who can lead several hectares as early as the morning star, and it is common for those who can lead dozens to hundreds of hectares, and there are also many who can lead hundreds or thousands of hectares." The landlords of the Hetao area occupied tens of thousands of hectares, and collected about 20,000 stones of grain annually, and more than 100 armed people. Linhe County has a total of 900,000 mu of land, 2 landlords covering an area of ​​300,000 mu, 4 households covering an area of ​​more than 10,000 mu, 9 households covering an area of ​​more than 1,000 mu, and even the Catholic Church covers an area of ​​140,000 mu.

In order to increase wealth, in 1927, chun, Yan Xishan and Shang Zhen strongly advocated planting poppy in Suiyuan area, abolishing the smoking ban, establishing a "aftermath bureau", setting up a checkpoint to collect transit tobacco tax, levying tobacco lantern donations, and not asking about tobacco restaurants, tobacco stalls and smokers.

It was Yan Xishan and Suiyuan authorities that imposed tobacco taxes on local people, which allowed the people to expand the poppy planting area, reduce grain output, and exacerbated the famine in Suiyuan in recent years.

Faced with the natural disaster, the people called on the Suiyuan authorities to eliminate bandits, suspend tax increases, and stop planting poppy and land clearing. Shang Zhen not only ignored it, but instead started by increasing taxes, planting opium, clearing more than 10,000 wastelands, and seizing wastelands to solve the food, salary and service problems of more than 20,000 officers and soldiers. In the end, in 1927, the chun triggered Guisui, Helinger and other counties, and the struggle against Qingzhang broke out continuously.

Since then, there have been several consecutive years of major disasters. Many lower-class people in Suiyuan died due to the disaster, while the landlords and bureaucrats took the opportunity to make a fortune in refugees and trafficked humans for profit.

After understanding the situation, Chen Hailan cursed viciously: "Damn it! Since these hun eggs don't take human lives seriously, we don't need to take these so-called landlords seriously!"

Immediately, Chen Hailan commanded the troops of the headquarters and attacked some landlords and bureaucrats at night based on the situation obtained from the reconnaissance. Among them, the Wang Tongchun landlord and Feng Xi, the chief reclamation office sent by Yan Xishan, were robbed by Chen Hailan. From these two families alone, Chen Hailan's troops harvested more than 200 long and short guns, more than 160 good horses, 82 gold bars, 120,000 yuan in the ocean, and several grains.

However, Chen Hailan did not deal with these two people, but remembered the "cutting leeks" and "shearing sheep" that Zhao Zhenzhong once told their members of the Rangers. Chen Hailan knew that these two people must have more than that, but it is unlikely that they would spit out their entire family fortunes at once. It would be better to slowly stretch them out and wait a while to visit them again.

Through the looting of landlords and bureaucrats in Linhe County and surrounding areas, Chen Hailan's troops not only became cavalrymen, but also collected enough food for 5,000 people to eat and use for more than a year.

However, the landlords who were looted were naturally unwilling to accept it, so they secretly colluded with the bandits in the Houtao area to bribe them to eliminate the bandits known as "a gust of wind". Then, when the bandits who were trapped suddenly saw a group of people and horses who did not follow the rules and went to their bowls to grab food, they were naturally angry and prepared to join forces to deal with Chen Hailan's troops.

Among them, the largest bandits were Yang Yaofeng's troops. Yang Yaofeng's bandit was called "Yang Houxiǎo". From the back to the Xitao area in Ningxia, the bandits were the activity range of the bandits in this unit. In 29 years, Yang Houxiǎo's troops joined forces with Su Yusheng, Ma Qian, Han Jinlu, Yang Zifu, Ma Cunliang, Ma Daniu and other stock bandits near Hetao jointly entered Ningxia and rampant. Unexpectedly, they were beaten by the Ningxia chairman Ma Hongbin, appointed by Feng yuxiang, and ran away in scattered. Among them, Su Yusheng was driven to Shaanxi, Ma Qian was driven to Wuwei, Han Jinlu was driven to Longnan, Yang Zifu and Ma Cunliang were treated as pleading, Ma Daniu was eliminated, and Yang Houxiǎo was driven back to the back.

After the latter, the remnants of Ma Daniu regained some vitality. After nearly a year of growth, Yang Houxi's troops had thousands of people, and they were all horse bandits. Now that they learned that a "gust of wind" emerged in the Linhe area and he and others competed for territory, Yang Houxiǎo naturally wanted to get rid of this new force. However, with the lessons from Ningxia, Yang Houxiǎo was much more cautious. He contacted Jinbaoshan in the Hetao area, and two bandits Liu Lama, pieced together more than 2,800 people, and discovered the approximate position of "gust of wind" in Langshan, preparing to attack together.

Yang Houxiǎo and the others wanted to plot against Chen Hailan's troops, and Chen Hailan was also plotting against Yang Houxiǎo and others. After learning that the three troops were about to attack him, Chen Hailan had a plan in his mind.

So, Yang Houxiǎo and the others were very convenient to learn that the "Yigu" of the troops went to Boxwood Platform to "hunting", so they prepared to follow their subordinates' suggestions and wait for a gust of wind to pass through the waterway between the inside and outside of the Yellow River between Boxwood Platform and Linhe County. Now the waterway is frozen, and if an accident occurs, the people will definitely fall on the ice and be slaughtered.

Sure enough, a "gust of wind" appeared, and Yang Houxiǎo and others were ecstatic, but to their disappointment, the "gust of wind" seemed to realize that something was wrong, so they turned around and left.

"Damn, these guys are so slippery." After scolding, Jin Baoshan asked again: "Master Yang, what should we do? Will we chase after you?"

"It seems that they want to run along this river to the outer Yellow River. Anyway, they are going back to the old nest. Let's take a shortcut, cross the outer Yellow River first, and wait near Langshan." Yang Houxiǎo decided to say.

On the side of the Yellow River near Langshan, Chen Hailan and his men and cats were waiting patiently in the hidden place.

"Chief of Staff, can they come?" asked Cui Yi, the captain of the Second Brigade of the Special Forces Brigade, who was fighting with his teeth that were so cold that he was fighting.

"How many times have you said it? Call me the second leader." Chen Hailan said angrily, "We have only more than 400 people over there, and they have nearly 3,000 people, so they will definitely come here. The arrangements on the ice will not be violent, right?"

"It's definitely no problem." Cui Yi said tremblingly, "Now they cross the river first. We are attacking each other across the river, so they can bear it."

After waiting for nearly two more, just as Chen Hailan's patience was almost wiped out by the cold, there was a sound of people shouting and neighing at the opposite side of the river.

"Come here! Order all departments. Without my gunshots, no shooting is allowed! No explosion is allowed! Put the bandits closer and beat them! Try not to hit the horses, that is all ours!" Chen Hailan ordered.

Looking at the outer Yellow River, which was frozen in front of me, Yang Houxiǎo and then piled up with snow, Lama Liu said to Jinbaoshan, "Master Jin, Master Liu, you can bring people to prepare first. I will take people here to escort the formation, and then we will arrive."

Jin and Liu saw that there was no trace of people passing by on the snow on the Yellow River. Without thinking too much, he nodded in agreement. It was difficult to walk on the ice on horseback, so the bandits dismounted and led their horses across the river.

"It's broken!" Chen Hailan slapped his mind in a little annoyed and said, "I want to make it."

Waiting for Jin, Liu and his men led their troops into the frozen river. After walking for half a while, there were one or two hundred people in Yang Houxiu who were on the ice. At this time, a bandit walked in front suddenly kicked a round thing under his feet. Before the bandit could curse it, with a "boom", the bandit and the people around him were all reimbursed.

"Damn it! There is an ambush!" Yang Houxiǎo was shocked.

When Chen Hailan saw this, he had to pull the trigger in his hand. With the sound of the gunshot, not only did a continuous sound of gunfire sound, but the ice surface of the Yellow River outside was completely broken into pieces with a more violent explosion. A group of bandits on the ice fell into the water one after another. This was the ice water in the cold winter, and the thrust bandits screamed.

"It's over..." Although Yang Houxiǎo stayed by the river, his heart was also cold. After gritting his teeth, Yang Houxiǎo ordered unwillingly: "Get away!"

The remaining 800 horse bandits on the river bank were staring blankly as the bandits struggling in the ice water were "named" by the other party with bullets. After hearing the order, they woke up as if they were dreamy and hurriedly got on the horse and fled away.

"A momentary negligence, the harvest I got was seen as the bottom of the water. It was bad luck!" Chen Hailan spat.

"The second leader, this is already good. Most of the Marco who fell into the river climbed to the shore, and the bandits were not lucky." Cui Yi said happily, "I guess it would be nice to have more than 2,000 bandits who climbed up and were captured by us. Even if we didn't shoot, those who were wearing cotton and leather clothes in this winter would suck up water and freeze to death."
Chapter completed!